Suite 269 (3 page)

She was trying to rub his leg. Slut. Though, I didn't blame her, though, the man was glorious. If I were Sophia, I'd be rubbing more than my hand on that leg, that's for sure.

I watched it play out like a bad soap opera. Waving Preston back over, I tapped on the rim of my drink and ordered another, then just sat back and silently watched, an embarrassing amount of empty glasses on the table in front of me.

Then they were fighting. And you know when you just feel like people are talking about you? Yeah,
that
feeling. That's exactly what I felt because she kept glancing over at me. She had her stunningly beautiful face all twisted up in his, her perfectly French manicured finger poking him, and her Victoria’s Secret model body flaunting its assets dramatically. Her giant, brown doe eyes batting their mascara-laden lashes like she was the innocent victim of the drive-by-cheating.

Mr. Holt was enraged and from where I sat, it looked like he was starting to foam at the mouth.
What the hell could they be fighting about? Did she sleep with someone he was engaged to?
I sipped at my drink. Oh, who was I kidding; I downed it in one giant gulp and wiped the back of my hand over my lips, trying desperately not to cry. My stomach clenched tightly and the walls of the bar slowly began to spin around me, tilting and whirling.
Great
, not only would I be forever humiliated by my fiancé cheating on me, I was going to drunkenly fall all over the bar room floor and make a fool out of myself in front of all my colleagues. Yes,
colleagues
.
Collllllleeeeeagues
. Isn’t that a funny word? Did I mention we were all at a convention together for work? Uh huh. Oh, and the majority of these people were supposed to be guests at our wedding too.

Holy Hell!
I was supposed to get married in twenty days to someone who had his
thing
in someone else the night before.

Yes, my
life
sucked. Five, six, ten, possibly twelve (stop counting, you're not my mother) measly apple martinis would not be fixing this problem. I should have fixed it with one of those strippers, but I've always been standoffish in that department. Hell, after five hundred, “
I'm sorrys
,” Trager told me it was one of the reasons he looked elsewhere.

His exact words:
You're too insecure, not receptive sexually, and too self-conscious to enjoy yourself
. Well, what woman isn't? Apparently, that answer would be Sophia.

After a loud smack of her hands across the tabletop, Sophia stood up and stormed out of the bar. I wondered if she’d go find Kevin. There was some sort of drunk tingly itch in the back of my brain that told me I should go after her, stop it from happening, but really? Why should I? I didn’t know if I could find it in my heart to forgive either of them.

My eyes followed her out. She was perfect, every single unfaithful, backstabbing, fiancé stealing inch of her. Me, not so much. I was just average old me. Turning my head back in Mr. Holt’s direction, I froze and met with his icy cold stare.
He was definitely no giraffe
.

You know that feeling you get when you experience looking at someone for the first time, someone way beyond gorgeous, and they're looking back at you? You get that whole body tingling feeling and your heart speeds up. That moment when your eyes lock and your fingers start to fidget, you can’t control your breathing, and your lungs actually begin to ache along with your lower regions. That's the idiotic feeling I was experiencing looking at my boss.

I stood immediately, mouth flooding with the burn of regurgitated apple martini, making my eyes sting with its acidic fire. My lips tightened and pinched, teeth clenched like a dam, and I was about to blow. Jutting my chin up to the best of my ability, I rushed through the middle of the bar and only stumbled when I was out of view in the hallway against the lovely antique planters that were stationed alongside the exit.

Where, slumped on my knees, I emptied my stomach and retched out my broken heart as my tears chased each other down my cheeks.

Reality slapped me hard in the face in the form of spiky, green plastic leaves dripping with my very own martini-scented filth.
My Kevin
had slept with
someone I worked with
, and now the person I truly thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, wasn’t someone I could spend the rest of my life with. My stomach heaved again as the outrageous conversation Kevin offered me played back in my mind.

"You're addicted to working; it's all you ever do. I have needs, Lexa, and you act like I'm not here. She was there when you weren't. It was only one damned time!" With squinted eyes, he tilted his head and stared up at the ceiling, exhaling a long, drawn out breath. He really did look like a giraffe— long, wide nose and strange ears that stuck straight out of his head. I must have been blind. Blind and stupid. I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from our mini bar, twisted it open, and downed it as he continued to list the reasons it had all been my fault, how I had forced him to be with someone else, justifying breaking my heart.
I tried to wipe the memory from my mind, gagged back more vomit, and attempted to stand.

Gravity laughed at me with plans of its own.

The hallway, carpeted with its deep red and brown obnoxious patterns, spiraled and reeled wildly around me. The offensive designs seemed to attack my inebriated state and the vomit-filled planter somehow tackled me at the hips, sending me flying into the air until gravity had its way with me, landing me flat on my back.

So, that’s where I stayed, sprawled out on the suspiciously criminal carpet, looking up at the flat white painted ceiling, hoping that I’d somehow turned magically invisible within the last few seconds. I had never felt so utterly pathetic in all my life; I had never even known that could
be
an emotion.

A heavy weight crashed through my chest, bubbling and sobbing as it tore past my lips. It felt like something broke inside me; my heart maybe? Whatever it was just drained out of me, seeped into the rough surface of the rug beneath me, leaving me completely empty.

Somewhere above me were voices. Some sounded panicked, some may have been giggling, but I heard them like they were somewhere far above me, floating in the air. I couldn’t understand them; they were just sounds strung together with no real meaning. Because all I could hear were Kevin’s grunts and moans, his whispers and filthy words, and his slips, slides, and slaps against skin that was not mine. Yep, all I could still hear in my head, all I could still see in my mind, was Kevin, the man who was never going to love me the way he promised me he would since he’d brought Sophia Willington to a screaming orgasm like none that he’d ever given me.

T
he next morning
at exactly 10:04 am, the conference room was thick with conversations—every one of them about
me
.

"So hold up a minute," Evan, one of the Ad Execs, said as he tossed his files on the conference table and collapsed into the seat next to Jameson Holt. "Sophia was screwing the mailroom guy?"

"Yep. Lexa Novak caught them." He leaned back against the leather conference seat and ran his hands down his face.
How freaking humiliating; my boss knows
! "You know her, right? I've only seen her a few times around the office."

"Yeah," Evan said, scratching at his chin. "Lexa, she's that brunette in fact checking, right?" His eye widened. "Oh, man. Did she catch them screwing in the office?"

Jameson looked at Evan and sighed. "No, Trager the Mailroom Guy is Novak's fiancé, or was her fiancé. I'm not sure anymore. They were getting married at the end of the month; we were all invited to the wedding. She walked in on them in Trager's apartment."

Trager's apartment? Wonder where he got his wrong info? Gossipy fool needs a fact checker.

"Whoa. I thought that Novak chick was into women; you know," he lowered his voice, "butch. She always dresses like a guy."

Butch? It's no nonsense business attire, you moron.

Around us, the conference room began to fill with more of my colleagues and more murmured conversations floated past me. I knew they were all talking about whatever rumor they had heard from last night. We were a news crew, a bunch of writers and reporters; of course, what happened would be headlines to them.

"That blows, man. What are you going to do about Sophia? Was it just a one off or something?" Evan asked.

Jameson shrugged an answer at him.

I moved silently behind them to the coffee table as Jameson muttered something to Evan that I couldn't quite hear, which made them both laugh. Grabbing a cup and pouring myself some coffee, I stared at the back of their heads, trying to figure out why the hell Evan asked Jameson about what he was going to do about Sophia. He could fire the woman, but I didn't think her sleeping with my fiancé would warrant such harsh punishment from him. Something more was going on.

Sipping at my coffee, steam rose in thick vapors over the cup.

Evan laughed quietly, nudging Jameson on the arm. "She's pretty hot if you look at her long enough and squint. Take down that hair, get her out of those awful clothes... yeah... I bet she'd be smoking. Think she'd need a rebound bang soon? Or should I wait for a couple of days?"

I was going to put out a contract hit on that perverted jerk
.

"I think the poor girl needs to be left alone. She’s getting married in like three weeks. No woman is going to cancel her own wedding just because the groom's a douche."

I stepped out of the shadows and pulled out a chair at the long conference table, trying to mask my trepidation. Evan's eyes snapped up and met mine as a hushed, "Oh shit," fell from his lips.

"Or, Evan, you could squint really hard and find that your penis is really small and realize that I wouldn't give someone like you the time of day," I snapped, kicking my foot into the back of his chair.

Oh. Oh my God. That just came out of my mouth
.

Jameson leaned forward, eyes snapping to mine, and belted out a hearty laugh. He glanced at Evan. "That's the best thing I've ever heard a woman say to you. She's got a pair of balls, at least."

"Yeah, but not as small as his," I pointed at Evan. I think I may have even snarled a bit.

My standoff with Evan ended as Remington Holt strode in and headed right for the head of the conference table. Silence followed him. A coffee and a sesame seed bagel was placed in front of him, which he ignored as he promptly began his presentation. I could barely keep my eyes open. I'd been through this presentation no less than ten times; heck, I put most of it together
checking freaking facts
. My eyes scanned the room and I realized everyone was in rapt attention. Everyone except me, who sat rigid in my chair, spinning a pen through my fingers. It never fell. I just continuously looped and entwined the pen through each finger, over and over. Repeatedly, as Mr. Holt droned on and on and on.

Until he just stopped.

He stopped abruptly, waited a few seconds, then said, "Well, well, well. Miss Willington, I'm so glad that you could make it to my little conference
thirty minutes late
, the one my company has paid your airfare and hotel for. Did you have a rough night?"

I raised my eyes to the doorway where Sophia stood in the sexiest outfit I'd ever seen her in.
What the heck? This was InTrend not Playboy magazine.

"Sorry, sir, I had a lead on something and was on the phone with a contact," she bragged, pulling out a chair across from me and sitting. Cheeks bright red and beaming, eyebrows arched up to her hairline.

She crossed her long legs under the table,
kicked me
, and smiled. "Sir, I have been in contact with Alex Kavon.
Theeee Alex Kavon!"
Sophia was desperate to make her spot in this magazine. Pulling the Kavon card was beyond ambitious. Alex Kavon was a one-man powerhouse. Never seen before, but had a name for himself as the number one blogger/entertainment online magazine founder that ever existed. His blog, his fans, and his connections to the music and film industry were immense. Yet no one had ever had contact with him. No one.

And I knew she was a lying sack of crap. She was probably late because of Trager; that idiot always slept through his alarm. If it weren’t for me waking him up every damn day, he'd sleep until noon, wait for his mother to dress him, and serve him smiley-faced pancakes.

Remington interrupted my thoughts. "Hopefully your contact with the infamous Mr. Kavon is morally sound and not of the same nature you have with our in-house mail service."

Whoa. I tried not to laugh but failed miserably.

"And, really, Miss Willington, the worst part about you being late for my meeting is the half-drunk iced coffee in your hands."

Sophia gasped. Jameson and Evan smirked.

Me? I burst out in uncontrollable laughter. The kind that you can't stop even though you desperately want to.

"Shut your mouth," Sophia hissed under her breath. The room went dead silent, like one of those sudden, anticipation filled moments in a dramatic movie. That old western standoff music sounded in my head. And I tried; I tried to stop. I even slapped my hand across my mouth and pushed my chair away from the table, but the giggles spilled over my fingertips like an overflowing fountain, flooding the room. "I'm not the one who has a problem with keeping things shut," I snipped through hysterical laughter.

All hell broke loose in the conference room then. People were tearing each other apart with words until Remington yelled at the top of his lungs that the conference would resume after we all grew up, promptly at nine the next morning. We filed out of the room with our tails between our legs.

"That was the most unprofessional thing I have ever seen," Jameson snapped, glaring at Sophia. I stopped abruptly, watching his cold eyes as they flitted from hers to mine.

Of course, he was right. "I apologize, Mr. Holt. It won't happen again," I said through clenched teeth, hoping that my voice would somehow hide my rage and shame.

My eyes widened as Jameson gently nudged the back of his hand to my elbow and escorted me through the lobby into the elevator, then pushed the button to the fifth floor where all the business suites were. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Miss Novak," he murmured as the elevator doors closed between us. "You're not the office slut around here."

What?

I stood stunned in the elevator, eyes averted to the floor, my fingers fumbling with the gray and purple card key of my room.

Yeah well, enough slut slamming, because maybe if I were more of a slut, Kevin wouldn't have had to look to someone who was
.